Coolest Hot Air Balloon Costume that Lights Up!

My husband and I decided to once again make our son’s Halloween costume this year. We had a lot of fun making his Hot Air Balloon Costume that Lights Up. We started with a basket and cut out the bottom. I then sewed some “globe” like shaped strips together to make the balloon cover. I added boning to a solid strip and added it to the bottom of the balloon cover. This allowed me to shape the bottom and give it a little structure. I pushed a thin wooden ring through the bottom hole of the cover.

We used a needle point ring. We then weaved in 4 -3/8 dowels through the basket and attached them to the ring inside the balloon cover. To give the hot air balloon some more detail, we created “sand bags” by filling 2 pieces of burlap with crumpled newspaper, tied them with jute then tied them to the basket. So that they didn’t move, I hot glued them to the basket.

Here’s where the hubby came in… We wanted the balloon to light up, so he wired a light to a battery pack. The battery pack was secured to the inside of the basket. He ran the wire up one of the dowels and stuck the light bulb into a large cork. He rigged the light to a lever made out of a looped strip of burlap that hung from the same dowel that the wire was attached to. The day of, we put a weather balloon into the balloon cover and blew it up. Finally, we put the cork in it to close it up and Hoila! My son loved pulling the lever and showing everyone how the balloon lit up!